Lake O' the Pines

Yesterday on our evening walk around the campground, we noticed a couple of sites in the first come area that had orange cones and "rented" signs on them. This struck us as unusual, since the general rule for walkup or first come sites is that you have to put equipment on it and occupy the site for the first 24 hours. This morning we stopped to chat with the volunteers at the gate and asked about it. They said that here if you come in person and put a cone or something on the site and start paying for it immediately, you can in effect reserve the site for your later arrival.

We spent part of the day going through our mail and paying bills, not our favorite task, but it has to be done. This evening we watched another part of Ken Burns' Civil War documentary. We've seen the whole series before, but find it just as compelling the second time around.

You can see from this campsite photo why the lake we are camped beside is called Lake O' the Pines. We are surrounded by tall sturdy pine trees.

It's nice to look out and see the lake and hear the birds. So peaceful.

For supper tonight I fixed Pasta with Italian Chicken Sausage, Peppers and Escarole from Gina's Skinny Recipes, but with modifications of course. We don't have red peppers, so I used green, and we don't have escarole, so I followed a suggestion and substituted spinach. The chicken sausage I used was basil flavored from Sprouts. We really enjoyed this different take on pasta.